Deb hung up the phone, tapped it against her chin.
“Wow,” Nicole said, sitting on a small stone bench across from her. “Talk about unloading.”
“He thinks I’m a mess,” Deb told her friend. “And he’ll tell everyone he talks to about this conversation. Clark’s a gossip.”
Nicole recrossed her legs, briskly rubbed the cold from her thighs. “So why’d you go both barrels on him?”
Deb dabbed her eyes. “He said he’s seeing Susan Myers tonight. He’s going to tell her I was a wreck. She and I are supposed to talk tomorrow about a job, and she’ll be sympathetic. She lost her husband a few years ago to cancer.”
Nicole stared at her. “You devious little bitch. I like you a little more now.”
“All that was waiting to come out. I just let it.” Deb paused. “He kept pressing me.”
“Do you really need money? I don’t have any, but I’ll help you rob a bank or something.”
“I might.”
“Were you serious about Grant’s accounts?”
“It’s even worse. Everything’s gone. He drained his retirement. Cancelled his life insurance. We have what’s left in our checking account, and that’s it after a few months.”
Deb walked over to her friend, sat down next to her, leaned against her shoulder.
“Are you trying to go through my purse?” Nicole asked.
“Shut up and hold me.” Deb felt Nicole’s arm over her.
The two women sat silently for a few moments.
“What are you going to do?” Nicole asked.
“Sell the house. Kim doesn’t live here anymore, and I don’t need a place this big. I can get an apartment or a townhouse. Something smaller, with enough room for Kim when she comes back to visit. And this house is full of memories of Grant; it makes me sad. It’ll be good to leave.”
“What about Kim’s college?”
“This year is paid for. We’ll have to take out loans for the next two, but I’ll help her pay those back. I don’t want her to have to change her life any more than she already has.”
“What do you think Grant did with the money?” Nicole asked hesitantly.
“Honestly, I have no idea.”
The two women watched a bird land on a branch, tiptoe awkwardly, then fly away.
Nicole left just before dinner. Kim had plans with friends and wasn’t expected back until late. Deb didn’t feel like cooking, so she heated a Lean Cuisine, paired it with a glass of wine, ate on the couch in front of the television. The DVR was full of shows she and Grant used to watch, programs they enjoyed together but she would probably never watch on her own—courtroom dramas, cop shows titled after prominent American cities, one or two popular sitcoms.
She turned on the news. Saw a teaser for a story about a murdered man, shot twice, the police confirming it was in similar fashion to other recent murders.
Deb quickly changed channels until she landed on a competition show about woodworking, forced herself to get sucked in. The contestants had been placed in teams and were designing and crafting gazebos. The camera lingered over the process of wood being selected, measured, a circular saw sinking its teeth into a board.
Deb woke on the couch, confused. Hours had passed. The television was off, a blanket pulled over her.
“Mom, are you drunk?”
Deb blinked, saw Kim holding her wine glass. She rubbed her eyes, sat up.
“Just tired. What time is it?”
“Almost two.”
“You were out late.”
The comment was a combination of observation and complaint, but Kim didn’t take offense to it. She sat on the chair adjacent to the couch, picked up Deb’s wine glass, swirled the drops of red wine pooled in the bottom.
Deb could tell something was bothering her. “Do you need to talk?”
Kim set the glass down, kept staring at it as she spoke. “I need to tell you something.”
“Oh boy.” Deb sat up, tried to calm the nerves rustling her stomach.
“It’s not the end of the world or anything.”
“You don’t want to go back to school.”
“What? No, I do.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“Mom, stop guessing.”
Those nerves refused to settle. “It’s okay. You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”
Kim was rubbing her hands together. “It’s about someone I’m dating.”
Deb couldn’t help guessing again, her words coming out fast. “Did he hurt you?”
“No. And he’s not a he.”
Kim watched her mother, let that sink in.
Deb blinked.
“Oh!” She paused. “Really?”
“She lives down the hall from me. We’ve been together almost half a year.” Kim looked helplessly, hopelessly worried. “Are you mad?”
As often happened when something momentous happened with Kim, Deb remembered when her daughter was just a little girl. When she was three or four and loved being held, and it seemed like Deb and Grant would never let her feet touch the ground. When she first learned to walk and ran unsteadily back and forth between them. When she first laughed.
Kim embraced drama as she grew older. Deb vividly remembered the fights, the stomped feet, sharp intakes of breath. Slammed doors.
And then, later, there was a time when everything was hell, when Kim seemed uncontrollable and inconsiderate, attracted to something dark that was foreign to Deb and Grant. They’d both grown up with their own share of wild times and regretted nights, and assumed they’d be prepared for anything a teenage daughter could throw at them. But they weren’t ready for the terrifying insouciance that came with the attitude, like Kim was standing at the entrance of a dark alley. But not just standing. She was beckoning. Smiling.
That was high school.
In college, their daughter returned.
Maybe it was loneliness or not living in the same house or Grant’s exhortations to treat Kim as an adult, but Deb noticed that much of her daughter’s difficulty had left. Kim would visit them on weekends; sit at the small, sunny breakfast table in the kitchen, huddled over a cup of coffee; ask them about their jobs and friends. Like any kid, Kim still liked talking more than listening, but the fact that she listened at all was a welcome change.
“Mom?”
“What did your friends say?”
“They’re all cool with it. What’s wrong?”
Deb stayed silent, trying to determine the best way to say what was on her mind.
“Mom?”
“I don’t care who you love,” Deb said. “I just want you to be safe. It’s a hard world for anyone who’s different.” That fear Deb had felt back when Kim started college returned, the worries about drinking, rape, bullying, peer pressure, drug use, death.
“I’m not going to hide who I am,” Kim said impatiently. “I shouldn’t have to do that.”
“No, I know …”
“This is who I am. I’m attracted to men and women.”
Kim was defiant, her thin arms crossed over her chest, narrowed eyes daring Deb to disagree.
“This is who I am,” Kim repeated.
“I’m just worried about you.”